The Future of Real Estate Startups in India

The last decade has been instrumental in India’s growth story with thousands of startups having mushroomed into full-fledged businesses. To begin with, the startup bubble has touched nearly every aspect of business—from food and travel and the more serious fields like education and real estate. All these massive changes have occurred after the turn of the millennia.

Amidst, all the developments, the most influential sector, that sticks out like a sore thumb, is the real estate industry. A recent data released by the Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), the sector has witnessed a 19% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2010-2014. The same statistic also suggests that the real estate industry as a whole is expected to reach $180 billion at the turn of the decade.

After analysing the growth patterns of the last few years, a seemingly natural question comes to mind: What does the future of real estate startups look like? To put it unabashedly, the answer for this is, not the same. But that’s no satisfactory answer. To predict what happens in the future, we need to examine the present, and trace the development further up.

What The Present Looks Like
Gone are the days when real estate tech companies only offered you a listing of apartments on sale. Currently, real estate startups have building themselves up to provide solutions to all the problems faced by the urban populace.

In doing this, real estate startups are having the time of their life, driving deals away from the brokers, getting funding on different levels, and providing solutions to the problems of the everyday working professionals.

Here’s an example of such a thing.
One of the main problems tenants these days’ face is the barrage of house owners who quote exorbitant sums as rent and deposit. Besides this, the owners make a big fuss over the formulation of a rental property agreement. To help solve the most primitive problems faced by the millennials, Zenify, a rental property management company based in bangalore stands as an interface between an owner and their tenant.

While the owners are offered services like end-to-end property management and assured rents, the tenants get online bookings, fair agreement and pricing terms, and an access to quality living.

This is just one instance. There are other companies that offer other incredible services. For instance, commonfloor, one of the first entrants in the real estate online space, offers a VR-based apartment visit facility to reduce the time consumed by prospective homebuyers. Housing.com, on the other hand, offers a simple yet highly functional UI to improve your house hunting experience.

What The Future Holds
Indian real estate went through one of the worst slumps in its history as apartments failed to attract buyers due to the rising property prices. Despite this showdown on one side, the online realty market still witnessed some heavy investment from global players like Accel, SoftBank, and Qualcomm Ventures among others.

The Surge of Big Data
As big data analytics is seeing more and more takers, real estate players too are looking to bank on the new trend to find better leeway into the industry. For starters, plenty of B2B platforms are in the works. There are some that are aiming to speed up the process of getting feedback from prospective tenants to owners, and to help the negotiating process.

Overall, the real estate in India is set to go through one of its brightest periods over the next few years, which is being spurred by technology and the rapid influx of startups.